by Estelle Ryan
Caelan recited another fact and I had to force myself to slow my breathing.
“Can you cut through it?” Manny asked.
Colin looked at Vinnie. “Did you bring your toolbox?”
“Yeah, but Pink borrowed my wire cutter yesterday. Fuck. I don’t have anything in there that will cut through it.” He nodded at the knife in Colin’s hand. “The best bet is to saw through the wire with that. It will take longer, but that’s an ace knife. It will do the job.”
“What about me?” François’ voice had a hysterical tone to it. “What are you going to do to get this off me?”
“We’re waiting for the bomb squad.” Vinnie pressed down on François’ shoulder when the injured man started to move. “Just don’t fucking move.”
“I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. Get this off me.”
The thought of François acting on his neurotypical panic and mindlessly struggling to get away brought more darkness to my mind. I pushed hard at it and tried to concentrate. There had to be something I could do to help. It felt like I was fighting against an invisible force to get my mind to let go of the panic and focus on something proactive. “Why did Shahab torture you?”
François took a sharp breath and looked at me. “Because he found out I wanted to take his business away from him.”
His frankness surprised me and also didn’t surprise me. In Phillip’s conference room, he’d appeared desperate to share whatever had caused him such fear. It was, however, unusual for someone from his background to disclose criminal activity so quickly.
“What business?” I asked.
“You know.” He started shrugging, but stopped when Vinnie increased the pressure on his shoulder. He winced. He sighed heavily, then winced again, his arms moving closer to his torso, to his broken ribs. “Drugs. I was going to take some of his drug business to fund my art business.”
“You had a plan.” And I wanted to know what it was.
“Yes. Well, Élodie had a plan.” His sigh was sad. “I liked her. It’s awful that she died at Shahab’s hand.”
“Why did he torture her?”
“To find out where all the crates with Shahab’s product were, of course.”
“Let’s get back to the plan.” Manny took a step closer. “Tell me about that.”
“Élodie had figured out most of Shahab’s operation. She had it all mapped out. She knew how he got his product into France, she knew where he got his product from and she had figured out most of his distributors. It must have been one of those fuckers who told Shahab that we were offering them a better deal.”
“What deal?” I asked when he glanced down at his torso and his eyes widened. “Were you offering them more money?’
“No. A partnership. Élodie had it all figured out. She was working with the manager from this storage place. He was going to be the import point for us. The guy had been accepting all kinds of illegal shipments for years, including Shahab’s stuff. He got all this at his courier business. Somehow, Élodie found out about that and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
Something in his tone made me frown.
“You mean she blackmailed him.” Vinnie must have also heard the tone.
“It was her original plan. But when she went to Gilles, he was so excited about the quantity and the kind of money she was talking about, he immediately agreed to accidentally lose one shipment. He would then bring it here. From here, Gilles and I would co-operate in future deals. Élodie only wanted to do this one deal. Nothing more.”
“How’re you doing there, Frey?” Manny narrowed his eyes to see past Colin’s hands.
“Slowly, but surely.” Colin didn’t look up.
“An African elephant is pregnant for twenty-two months!” Caelan had slowed his rocking, but now it increased again.
“Oh, God.” François groaned. “We’re going to die here. I should never have gone against Shahab.”
“Where did Shahab get his heroin from?” I needed François’ attention away from the situation. And I needed something to focus on.
“Rudbar. It’s a small town in Iran. Shahab has a registered vineyard there. And they don’t produce wine.”
“He used the vineyard as a cover.”
“A great cover, as it turns out. He’s been importing crates of wine bottles to France for nine years already. His shipments were always about the same size as the one Gilles had brought here. Twelve crates.” He closed his eyes again, a tear rolling down his cheek. “We really thought we had planned it all out.”
“What went wrong?”
“Shahab has many contacts. He would never have known that Gilles had changed the recipients. Élodie helped him and they covered their tracks really well. They made it look like the crates never left Iran. But Shahab had someone at the port in Iran who told him the crates made it to France. His contact at the French port confirmed it.”
“That’s why Shahab came to Strasbourg.”
“Yes.” François swallowed. “He went straight to Élodie’s house. She’d only taken four crates. Shahab told me that she wasn’t able to tell him a lot before she died.”
“She had a pre-existing heart condition. The stress of the torture gave her a heart attack.”
“Shit. I didn’t know that.” François took a shaky breath. “Shahab took the four crates from her house and went looking for the rest. When he didn’t find it and those people he tortured knew nothing about this, he went back to her house to see if she’d lied and maybe had it hidden somewhere.”
That explained why Shahab had spent an hour in Adèle’s house after he’d sent the officers away. Colin grunted and I looked over. He was still sawing away at the rope. It looked like he was almost halfway through. Caelan had calmed down a bit, but was still rocking.
“Did Adèl... Élodie tell him about this warehouse?” Manny asked.
“No.” François groaned. “He told me she only had time to tell him she had stored the crates in a warehouse, but not which one. It took him a few days to figure that out. Then he found out about the treasure-hunting young people.”
“Geocaching,” Vinnie said. “Not treasure-hunting.”
“Well, he went after them.” He shivered. “First that young man. Then those other two. He made me take them out of his SUV and hide them in the forest. The first time I was lucky. The second time... those women saw me before I could get away. Shahab had already left and I was stuck there with the police. And somewhere in the process of killing these young people he found out about Gilles’ role in this takeover.”
“When did Shahab tell you this?” Manny asked
“When he still considered me a business partner.”
“Business partner?”
“I was his distributor in Rotterdam and sometimes supervised distribution here.”
“That’s how you knew Gilles.” I thought back to his reaction when Daniel had given the news about Gilles’ death. “You suspected Gilles would tell Shahab about your plan.”
“He was always a coward.” François sighed. “When I heard Gilles had been tortured, I knew my time was limited. Gilles would’ve told Shahab after the first punch. He was terrified when we found out Élodie was dead. That’s why he gave those other crates away. He didn’t want anything in his possession if Shahab came around asking him questions. And look how that worked out for him. When I left your office, I tried to play it cool so I could get away, but that stupid lawyer Shahab hired for me took me straight to that monster.”
“That was Shahab’s lawyer?” Manny asked.
“Oh, they’re best pals. Bastards.”
I thought about everything he’d told us so far. “How did you find out who Shahab’s distributors were?”
“I don’t know how Élodie did her research, but she was able to track down all of them. I think she did a lot of stalking. She told me that she knew where they were, but wasn’t sure about their names and exact details. So I used my contacts to find out more about the vineyard.
Turned out that all of the workers are there because Shahab threatened to torture and kill their families. We made contact with one who was willing to give us everything she could find in Shahab’s books. For a price.”
“Élodie sent her the money through the hawala system.”
“Yes. And we got what we needed.”
“How did this worker get the information to you?” I asked even though I was sure I knew the answer.
“She was very clever. She worked in Shahab’s office. She was the one who printed the labels for the bottles. She told us she would put the names and towns of the distributors on the labels. It would be in the lines of the background.” He huffed softly. “We never got it. Élodie took those four crates to check the labels and get the names. But then Shahab killed her.”
“You used the past tense for the woman who gave you this information.”
“Oh. No. She’s not dead. She managed to escape with her family before Shahab found out about all of this.” He glanced down at his chest. “Where is that bomb squad? You must get this off me.”
“They will be here soon.” The doubt on Manny’s face couldn’t be about their arrival. Did he doubt they could disarm the bomb? I glanced at Colin still sawing the rope. It looked like he’d cut through the centre and was now struggling with the last half.
Panic crept up on me and I forced myself to focus. “What was Élodie’s plan?”
“She wanted out.” François shuddered and tried to control his breathing. “That’s why she sold me Shahab’s business model for one million euros. I negotiated of course. For that money I wanted her to help me plan the first shipment, use her hawala contact to pay our informant in Iran as well as pay for the artefacts.”
“You mean the artefacts you stole from the Iranian people?” Colin’s voice was strained.
“I didn’t steal it. Someone else got 3D-printed copies made and paid a worker at the museum to replace the originals. I only paid for it.” He winced. “Élodie told me it was as good as stealing it myself. But she was no better than me. She dealt in drugs. Art is actually better. It’s a victimless crime.”
Colin stiffened, but didn’t respond.
“All I wanted was for the drugs to give me enough money to build a healthy portfolio of art.”
“To sell illegally.” Colin’s anger gave him more strength to cut through the rope, but the progress was slow.
“Doesn’t matter now.” François looked at his chest again. “Élodie will never get to study music. And if you don’t get this off me, I’ll...” His head jerked up when the sound of sirens came closer.
“Deep sea perch can live up to a hundred and forty-nine years!”
“We’re getting there, bud.” Colin increased his sawing. “Almost through.”
I wasn’t sure how many vehicles were outside, but it sounded like more than three came to a screeching halt close to the door we’d entered. Within seconds footsteps sounded in the warehouse. I didn’t move.
“Over here,” Vinnie called out. “The old man and I are armed and there’s one bomb here.”
“Clear!” a few male voices called out from around us.
“Can’t stay away from the action, Genevieve?” Daniel walked to us, his assault weapon lowered.
I frowned. “I don’t like action.”
“I know.” His smile was genuine. Then he sobered as he looked over the situation. “Well, you sure find a lot of it.”
“Where’s your bomb guy?” Manny asked.
“Where is he?” François searched the aisle. “You need to get this off me.”
“I’m here.” A muffled voice came from the end of the aisle. A suited man was slowly walking towards us. He was dressed in a blast-resistant suit, his large helmet obscuring his features. “Why are there so many people here?”
“The Sumatran-Andaman earthquake in 2004 lasted five hundred to six hundred seconds!” Caelan was slapping his thighs again. “Doctor Lenard! The three-toed sloth can move maximum five metres a day.”
Everything slowed down in my mind. I looked at François, his badly injured face, his broken hands and the bomb strapped to his chest. He’d used the last nine minutes to confess his entire criminal career and plan. I wondered if he’d accepted that he would die. Or was it that he desperately needed to relieve himself of the guilt he suffered for playing a role in the deaths of so many people?
“You need to get these people out of here, Daniel.” The bomb disposal technician stopped in front of François and leaned over to look at the device.
“It took more than two thousand years to build the Great Wall of China!”
“I’m almost done, bud.” Colin glanced over his shoulder towards François and the technician, but quickly turned back to continue sawing.
Caelan was losing control, his movements becoming more erratic by the moment. Then a realisation crashed into my thinking brain, followed by a rush of adrenaline. Caelan’s facts had first been about volcanoes to warn us about the bomb. All the other facts had been somehow related to time. I gasped.
“Jenny?” Colin looked at me.
I stared at the bomb disposal technician. “There’s a timer.”
“What?” The technician stilled. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Because we didn’t bloody know.” Manny took a step away from François. “If there’s a timer, there’s a countdown. What are we looking at?”
“Give me a moment.” The technician’s hands were steady as he took a device from his bag and aimed it at the bomb. The device immediately showed a red light. “A lot of explosives here.”
He took another device from his bag. A mobile x-ray machine. He aimed that at the bomb. The display showed a lot of wires. The technician put the machine down. “There are no wires under the lid. I’m going to remove it to see what we’re looking at.”
“It takes twenty-seven point three two days for the moon to orbit around the Earth!”
“Shit.” Colin’s jaw was tight as he worked harder to cut through the last wires on the rope.
“Oh, God. I don’t want to die.” François was crying, yet trying hard to control his breathing.
The technician carefully removed both the ropes that held the lid in place. With steady hands, he removed the lid. And tensed. “Evacuate. Now.”
Daniel didn’t hesitate. “Evacuate! Evacuate! Evacuate!”
The sound of boots running towards the door filled the warehouse. I stood frozen.
“I’m not done yet.” Sweat was forming on Colin’s forehead. “How much time do we have?”
“Twenty-three seconds.” The technician grabbed a wire cutter from his bag and tossed it to Colin. He lifted his bag and looked at François. “I’m sorry, sir.” Then he looked at Colin. “Don’t waste time.” He grabbed his bag and ran to the exit, slowed down by his bulky suit.
“Ninety percent of Earth’s population lives in the Northern Hemisphere!”
“Oh, God. Oh, God.” François looked at me, tears streaming from his eyes. “Tell Phillip I’m sorry.”
“Done!” Colin threw the wire cutter on the floor and got up. “Vin! Grab Caelan. I’ve got Jenny.”
Blackness rushed towards me, but I kept fighting it. Caelan wasn’t safe yet. Colin, Vinnie and Manny weren’t safe yet.
Vinnie ran to Caelan and picked him up like a baby. Caelan was jerking and keening, but he didn’t fight Vinnie as they ran to the exit, followed by Manny.
“Let’s go!” Daniel was waiting for us. Colin looked at me once, then lifted me over his shoulder and ran as fast as he could, Daniel by our side. I was looking back towards François still tied to the chair. He was sobbing, his one hand reached out towards us, his broken fingers stretched out.
That was the last image in my mind as we left the aisle and a few seconds later ran into the frigid night air. Manny, Daniel, Colin and Vinnie continued running towards the GIPN vehicles, their red and blue lights still flashing.
The bomb exploded.
The wa
rehouse lit up, followed by intense heat and a rush of air so strong that it pushed Colin off his feet. His legs buckled under him and we fell. I watched the snow-covered ground rushing up towards me and surrendered to the safe warmth of a shutdown.
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
“COMPLAIN ONE MORE TIME and I’m... I’m going to—”
“You’re going to what, little punk?” Vinnie grinned at Nikki when she threw her napkin at him. “Cook again?”
“Not if you keep on criticising everything I made.” Nikki turned to me. “Tell him, Doc G. A good friend supports you and doesn’t rip apart your labour of love.”
I valued Nikki’s cheerful and buoyant personality. Now more than ever. It had been a very difficult few days. But I couldn’t lie. “Vinnie is right. You forgot to add salt to the pasta. It doesn’t taste good.”
“Argh!” Nikki threw her hands in the air before she took the salt shaker and added more salt to her food.
It had been three days since the explosion and we hadn’t found Shahab. Francine had scoured through every camera in the vicinity of the warehouse. She’d found nothing. She hadn’t even been offended when I’d found it hard to believe and had looked through the footage myself. I also had found nothing.
We had come to the conclusion that Shahab must have worn a very good disguise to have avoided detection when he’d left the president’s residence and then the warehouse. It had been a very intense three days.
It was improving, but the first day after the explosion I’d seen the unadulterated fear on François’ face every time I closed my eyes. I hadn’t expected such strong emotional repercussions from leaving behind a man who’d played a role in those brutal deaths. I had trouble sleeping.
Colin had insisted we visit the hospital after the explosion. I had been in a shutdown for three hours before we could go. The doctor had examined the numerous small lacerations on my hands where the debris from the explosions had cut my hands when I’d lifted them to protect my face.
Fortunately for all of us, our winter coats had protected us from any deeper cuts. Had I worn my gloves, my hands would most likely not have been injured at all.
